Dance that shook the world

WHEN Alvin Ailey and a group of young African-American modern dancers at the 92nd Street Young Men's Hebrew Association gave a now-fabled performance in March, 1958, it changed forever the perception of American dance. The group arrive for two dates in Salford on October 4.

WHEN Alvin Ailey and a group of young African-American modern dancers at the 92nd Street Young Men's Hebrew Association gave a now-fabled performance in March, 1958, it changed forever the perception of American dance.

From that, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was formed, taking popular music, gospel and jazz and fusing modern, ballet and jazz dance.

The company has gone on to perform for an estimated 21m people in 70 countries, including two historic residencies in South Africa. Now they're coming to The Lowry as part of their first-ever British tour. I was lucky enough to see the first night recently at Sadlers Wells and it was an inspiring, dazzling programme.

Experience

"We just want people to come and experience with us the joy of dance. We're going to have a good time and we hope everyone else will, too," enthuses the Company's energetic Artistic Director Judith Jamison, who became a member of the company in 1965 and danced with the company for 15 years, then took over the company from her former mentor Alvin Ailey in 1989 just before his untimely death, and at his express request.

"I hope I'm a continuation of Alvin's vision," she says. "He has left me a road map. It's very clear. It works. We try to honour the past and our roots but look towards the future."

Jamison is one of the choreographers of Love Stories, the first of the pieces in their Lowry programme, developed in collaboration with modern dance maverick Robert Battle and hip hop pioneer Rennie Harris.

"I said to the pair of them before we stared working together `I'm the past; Robert, you're the present; and Rennie, you're the future!'," she laughs. The piece starts off the evening and stands as a kind of testament to Alvin Ailey's belief in the way dance could transform and empower.

Vespers

The second piece, Vespers, by Ulysses Dove, is, laughs Jamison, "a wring-your-towel-out" piece for the dancers, six black-clad women who leap from the bentwood chairs where they have settled to go through paroxysms of grief, fear and panic. Believing that the complexity of Bach's Violin Suite makes it impossible for just one person to dance, Hans van Manen divides the mischievously-titled Solo between three male dancers. It's an uplifting piece, bursting with explosive physicality and wit.

The performance ends, as does every one by the company, with Revelations, which Ailey created in 1960 and which has now become the most-seen modern dance work in the world.

Ailey always said that one of America's richest treasures was the cultural heritage of the African-American - "sometimes sorrowful, sometimes jubilant but always hopeful".

Or, as Jamison concludes: "Ailey is about the African-American experience and the modern dance tradition. So I think it's very important that the company be recognised as excellent, not as black,"

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater are at The Lowry, Salford, on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 4 and 5. £16 - £27. Call 0870 111 2000.